The Order of the Phoenix
by LilliesandRoses27
Summary: Jily Rival Band AU James potter is a big fan of trouble, particularly in the form of the beautiful and talented Lily Evans. Lily, however, can't very well return the sentiment. But with the two lead vocalists and their respective bands headed straight for performances at the Phoenix Music Festival, trouble is exactly what they're going to get.


**A/N: So for anyone who follows me on tumblr, you probably know the level of trash I am for AUs. Total trash. Heaps of trash. I LIVE FOR THEM. I've been thinking about a Jily Band AU fic for ages and it's finally come to fruition - or at least the first part has. Hope you like it!**

 **As with all HP fanfics, nothing recognizable belongs to me. JKR owns the characters, certain plot points, and though she probably doesn't know it, my heart and soul.**

"What's a five-letter word for 'the village's thickest man'?"

Lily's eyes snapped up from the organized print of her book to the chaos that was her bandmate's designated area of the tour bus. Marlene McKinnon, drummer extraordinaire and slightly less than extraordinary guitarist (but she's _working on it_ ), lay sprawled out on the bus's plush leather sofa amidst heaps of candy wrappers, magazines, pillows, and miscellaneous origami figures. Utterly unfazed by the explosion of rubbish she had crowded around her, Marlene held a crossword puzzle book close to her face and squinted at it, absent-mindedly tapping a pen to her chin.

If it wasn't for the time a centipede had somehow made its way onstage during a performance, and Marlene's subsequent fit of abject terror, Lily would say her drummer could not possibly fear anything more than boredom.

"Origami not interesting enough for you? Shame, your lotus flowers are actually quite good," Lily eyed the debris, silently praying Marlene hadn't buried her drumsticks beneath it like last time. Unfortunately, Lily begrudgingly noted from her seat at the small table in the bus's mini kitchen, it appeared that very little within three feet of the couch had escaped Hurricane Marlene.

The source of the wreckage herself sighed dramatically and rolled her head back on a cushion. "Folding paper over and over again into little meaningless shapes gives me an existential crisis," Marlene grumbled, flicking a little blue origami whale off the armrest. Lily snorted and shook her head, laughing, until her companion sent a threatening sneer her way. The former rolled her eyes, covering her smiling mouth with _Horace Slughorn's Guide to Intermediate Organic Chemistry_ to conceal the last of her amusement.

"If you're done laughing your silly arse off at my artistic differences with origami, I could really use that encyclopedia you keep in your skull. I need a five letter word for 'the village's thickest man'," Marlene demanded.

"Idiot."

Before she even knew it was coming, the crossword puzzle book struck Lily soundly in the face with a _thwap_ , propelled across the bus by her very irritated-looking bandmate.

"Hey!" Lily cried indignantly, "I didn't mean _you're_ an idiot, though I can very well say it _now_. The answer to the crossword is the word _idiot_. Like the village idiot? Get it?" Marlene dislodged herself from her hoarding and picked up the book from where it landed.

"Hmph. So it is."

"You know, if you are looking for an opening to apologize for your stupidity and violence, this would be it," Lily glared, rubbing her forehead. "Feel free to begin any time."

"Oh don't be such a ninny. I could've been infinitely more violent and stupid. Remember when we were in New York, and I hit that janitor with a golf cart outside my dressing room?" Marlene asked as she scribbled in the answer into her crossword. "Again, in my defense, I was about 85% sure he was one of those dreadful paparazzi photographers trying to get a picture of me naked."

The silence that followed prompted her to look up and find Lily's positively horrified expression.

"What, I never told you about that? Whoops." Marlene shrugged and returned to her cluttered couch, trying to settle back in.

"Sometimes I think you really have gone off the deep end, you know that?" Lily admitted, still looking at her incredulously.

"I hope for your sake you're complimenting my deep, insightful personality and artistic vision; wouldn't want me to accidentally have another outburst of stupid violence…Ever wondered what my slipper might taste like?"

"Probably a lot like lunacy. It's spent far too much time near you, and I'm afraid it's contagious." This time, Lily's smile only grew when Marlene narrowed her eyes dangerously at her.

"In case you were wondering, it is very difficult to find you in any way threatening when you're wrapped in that ridiculous cat blanket," Lily commented. It was truly a comical sight: Marlene, with her cropped, bright pink hair like a bird's nest, glaring from beneath a blanket decorated with at least a hundred cats playing various musical instruments.

"Insult my beloved blanket again, _I DARE YOU_ ," Marlene declared, passionately wielding what must have been her fist under the fuzzy blanket. That was the last straw for Lily, who hunched over in a fit of laughter. Not ten seconds later, Marlene began hitting her with the forgotten (and quite heavy) organic chemistry book.

Between Lily's shrieks of laughter and pain and Marlene's cries of 'YOU TAKE IT BACK RIGHT NOW, LILY EVANS, OR SO HELP ME', they made quite a ruckus.

A muffled, but still very irritable-sounding groan came from the back of the bus; more specifically, from a bunk where the third and final band member had been sleeping. Lily and Marlene ceased fighting at once and stared at each other.

"Oh no," Lily whispered ominously.

"We've woken _the Mary_ ," Marlene dropped the book at once, and jumped behind one of the leather chairs a few feet away. " _Take cover if you value your life!_ " she whisper-yelled at Lily, poking her head out from behind her cache. Lily only tried to stifle her snickers, failing miserably.

"I can _hear you_ , Marlene!" came a disgruntled response, still behind the curtain concealing her bunk. "You two get so stir crazy on long trips, I swear to God!" Mary McDonald's groggy form finally emerged from her bed, looking as happy about it as a bear woken from hibernation a month early. Pillow creases criss-crossed the brown skin of her cheeks and her normally wild, dark curls clung almost completely flattened to the left side of her head.

Provided that it was after the hour of 1:00 PM, their fantastic pianist and base player was normally a lovely person; as sweet and caring as they come. However, at a time like 11:35, Mary was downright dangerous.

" _Honestly_ , I could throw you both off this bus, _while it is moving_ , for waking me up at this god-forsaken hour," Mary grumbled and angrily jabbed the coffee-maker. It gurgled to life and began making her usual mid-day cup. "I wouldn't even mind performing at the festival alone. The fans like me better anyways."

" _Bullshit_ ," an affronted whisper came from behind the leather armchair.

"Now is probably not the time to be picking fights, Marlene," Lily warned as she watched Mary close her eyes and tense her jaw. "Your time might be better spent cleaning up the enormous black hole of shit you've got over there."

"Well I think _your_ time might be better spent being less of a _twat_ ," Marlene mumbled indignantly as she emerged from her hiding spot and joined her bandmates around the small table. Ignoring Marlene's petulant comment, Lily picked her hefty chemistry book up and began to read again. That is, until a laptop was unceremoniously plopped atop her book by a still-irritable Mary.

"I wonder if I'll actually be able to read this today," Lily pondered aloud.

"You're the only one who can remember that ridiculously complicated password and login for the Phoenix information page, and lineups went up this morning, so hop to it," Mary snapped. Lily shot her a look, but typed in the web address for the Phoenix Music Festival, their intended destination, and entered their login and password. While the lineup page was loading, Marlene scooted over and rested her bony chin on Lily's shoulder. Lily sighed.

"Make it load faster, will you?"

"I'll give it my best shot, Lil," Marlene started making crazy eyes at the computer screen while simultaneously slamming her finger on the return key. After a moment she gave up, huffing exasperatedly and flumping her head down onto the table. "Alas, the spinning wheel of death has conquered my excellent mind-control powers yet again, and I am defeated. How can I ever -"

"Oh shut up, it loaded," Mary interjected, a small smile playing at her lips. She snatched up the laptop - disregarding her bandmates protests - and set it in front of her. Marlene and Lily got up and crowded around her, eager to see when and at which stage they would be performing.

Next to their band's name, _Flora and Fauna,_ was _Gryffindor Stage_ and _2:00 PM._

"That's a pretty good venue, right? Fairly central?" asked Lily.

Mary nodded. "It's closest to the food area, oh what was that called…"

" _The Great Hall_ ," Marlene had enlarged a map next to the scheduling information and pointed to the area in question. "I'd say we have a pretty great location. All the people eating there will hear us too."

Lily exited the map screen and clicked to view the lineups.

" _No_ ," Lily whispered as she stared, eyes wide with horror, at the lineup for the Gryffindor stage. "This can't be happening. Please, one of you tell me the band following us is not _The_ _Marauders_."

The pained groan from Mary and Marlene's exclamation of 'NOT THOSE WANKERS' were enough to tell Lily that her eyes were indeed not deceiving her.

Lily dropped her face into her hands. They'd always had a fierce rivalry with the band through social media and subtle digs in interviews, but the past year had become more of a PR nightmare due to their infamous scandal. It's probably safe to say the debacle of that fateful day inspired many a song on their newest album, _Incredible_ _Disasters._

The whole scheme was _The Prophet's_ idea originally, to do a photo shoot highlighting the two bands. Two attractive groups of young musicians in one issue? Bound to sell. What they did not anticipate, however, was the degree of discord between some of the artists, particularly the two lead vocalists in their respective groups. After a few infuriatingly arrogant comments from James Potter, and Lily's subsequent dagger-like rebuttals, it became clear that the photo shoot would be deteriorating into a nightmare. Eventually the argument between the two lead singers escalated to the point where they had to be removed from the set. In Lily's defense, she _warned_ Potter she could 100% Judo flip him if he continued to piss her off.

Being locked out didn't exactly solve the problem, however. It was a stroke of pure shit luck that they came around to the subject of her connection to 'Shady Snivelus' just about the same time the man in question arrived at the photo shoot. Severus Snape, Lily's manager, quickly joined the argument, eager to have a chance to give his most hated rival a piece of his mind personally rather than through vicious subtweeting. The fight quickly turned physical, and Lily tried to intervene, but that's when the ugly truth came out.

That's when Snape called her a 'talentless bitch'. Surprisingly, James Potter tried to defend her, but she'd just about had enough. She fired Severus on the spot and left them to their own devices.

Shocked, hurt, and absolutely infuriated, Lily finished the rest of the shoot and immediately turned in. The turmoil was far from over, however. She'd suspected for a while that Severus was working with another band secretly, but Lily never would have guessed to what extent his betrayal went. As soon as she fired him, Snape joined the Voldemort Music Coorperation, an inherently sexist group determined to make music for "real artists" – i.e. male artists, like Tom Riddle.

And now, thanks to what could be interpreted as either one sadistic son of a bitch or ridiculously ignorant employee of the Phoenix Festival, she and her bandmates would likely be forced to see James Potter and his merry band of idiots all over again. Bad things tended to happen when the two bands actually came face to face, and Lily was not looking forward to it.

"You know, if we cut one of our songs I bet we could get out of there really quick and avoid them," Mary tentatively suggested.

Lily shook her head. "Not a chance. That setlist is final, and the last thing we should do is sacrifice our show just so we don't have to see them." She forcefully shut the laptop and pulled her knees to her chest.

"I know what will cheer us up," Marlene offered, throwing an arm around the sulking Lily.

Mary shot her a warning glace. "Marlene, as much as I'd love to raise a little hell for those guys, we are not doing something to them that will in _any_ _way_ prompt lawsuits, understood?"

The latter grumbled a very peeved 'well never mind then' and trudged back to her garbage couch.

Many miles away, James Potter was asleep, dreaming that he was fishing with his dad. It had been a pleasant dream until out of nowhere, a huge fish jumped out of the water and slapped the absolute shit out of him. It remained plastered to his face, taunting him until he woke up with a jolt, very confused about the fish-like sensation still lingering on his left cheek. Indeed, something very smelly and cold rested there, but not a fish.

It wasn't every day that James woke up with someone else's foot on his face, but it was getting frequent enough for him to wonder if Sirius was doing it intentionally.

"Sirius, again? Really?" James groaned, batting his bunkmate's foot out of the way and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"Stop touching m'foot Prongs…" Sirius was definitely more asleep than awake as he stretched, giving James another face full of foot.

With a sharp tug on Sirius' ankle, James sent him straight to the floor.

"What the fuck!"

"How the hell do you sleep like that? Half your body isn't even on the bloody bed," Leaning over the edge of his mattress, James scowled at the dark-haired blob on the ground he assumed was Sirius.

"Like a baby, unless some stupid _git_ decides to pull me down!"

"This is the third time this week I've had the pleasure to wake up with your toes centimeters away from my mouth," James argued, reaching for his glasses so he could deliver a proper glare. "Next time, my foot is going to be so far up your arse _you'll get the same experience_."

"Maybe if _someone_ hadn't refused to give up the bottom-right bunk in the first place…" Sirius grumbled darkly.

James stared at him, affronted. "You've been doing it on purpose!"

"I always have the bottom-right bunk on tour buses. It's my bunk!"

"I got to the bus first, and as per the rules, I got first dibs! You snooze you loose, mate."

Sirius smirked, a wicked glint in his eye. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think _you're_ the one who's been loosing when I snooze if this argument is any indication."

"I swear to God Sirius, if I wake up with your fucking foot in my face _one more time_ –"

"Why must you two be so _angry_ in the morning?" a groggy voice came from the bunk opposite James'.

"Great, you woke up Peter," Sirius glowered at his bespectacled, messy haired friend.

" _I_ woke up Peter?" James looked about ready to punch him, but the appearance of the fourth and final member of the Marauders interrupted him. Remus Lupin popped through the curtain separating the sleeping quarters from the rest of their tour bus, a packet of paper in his hand.

"Good, you lot are up. Come see the information for the festival," he waved the freshly printed packet and returned to his position on a chair in the front of the bus.

Now properly awake, James made to get through the curtain before Sirius, only to find himself subdued by a well-placed kick. Unsurprisingly, it was Peter who got to take a look at the packet next due to the subsequent scuffle between his ridiculous bandmates.

Peter scanned the information. When he came to the lineup schedule for their stage, he turned to Remus, eyes widened and brows raised.

Remus nodded his head. "I know."

"Someone on the Phoenix board has a sick sense of humor."

"They might end up regretting it," Remus folded his hands over his chest. "They've clearly never experienced the joy that is having Marlene McKinnon and Sirius within a mile radius of one another."

"Not to mention Prongs and Lily Evans," Peter added. The two band members being discussed finally emerged from the back of the bus, curious as to why they'd heard their names.

"Have a look," Remus pulled the packet from Peter's grasp and handed it to them.

After a moment, Sirius swore. James looked elated.

"My day just keeps getting _better_ ," Sirius complained, dramatically throwing himself down onto their 6-foot long beanbag chair. "I bet that miserable shrew has already thrown a fit about it on every social media outlet she has access to. How many times has Minnie tried to get a hold of me today?"

"Five," Remus had been trying to convince their PR manager that he would do his best to keep Sirius from posting anything profane for the better part of the morning. This was much easier said than done when it concerned the subject of Marlene McKinnon, however. Outside of hiding Sirius' phone as a preliminary precaution, there wasn't much he could do.

"Poor Minerva. It's a good thing she loves us, or else she'd never put up with Padfoot's shit," James remarked, looking through cupboards for some cereal.

"You can't honestly believe it's only Sirius' shit she has to deal with on a regular basis, right?" Remus flipped through a copy of _The Rolling Stones_ as he questioned his bandmate. "That reminds me, she also told me to tell you to behave yourself this weekend or she'll call your mother."

James stopped rummaging for breakfast. "She wouldn't."

"I wouldn't put it past her."

After some deliberation, James shrugged. "Well, she needn't worry, I'll be a perfect gentleman."

Peter and Remus shot him identical flat looks.

"What?"

" _That fusty tart_!" Sirius, unbeknownst to anyone else, found Remus' laptop and was browsing Marlene McKinnon's twitter feed. Evidently, she'd been very busy.

"Sirius, give that back _immediately_ ," Remus got up and began chasing after Sirius to reclaim his device.

"Fusty?" Peter mouthed to James, who shrugged.

Before Remus could grab his laptop back from his marginally insane friend, Sirius locked himself in the bathroom with it, bellowing about the 'absurdity of some of these, my hair is fucking _fantastic, how dare she_ '. Remus resorted to steadily banging his head on the bathroom's door in exasperation.

James, however, looked fairly unconcerned. "It's a lost cause, Moony. If he wants to wreak havoc on our public image there isn't very much he can do to make it worse anyways," he called to his dear friend and drummer.

"That's what you said after Perez Hilton insulted his motorbike, and look what happened then," Remus responded, quickly walking towards the television and entertainment unit at the front of the bus.

Peter burst out laughing. "That was brilliant, his website still crashes for a good 3 minutes when you type 'Perez is a major wankstain' in the search bar."

Remus soon returned to his seat and sipped a cup of steaming tea. "We're just lucky he only had to pay a fine after that debacle."

"Which was, if I recall, less than the fine we had to pay after you tricked those nasty reporters onto a direct flight to New Guinea," James pointed out, tossing a rolled up wrapper at Remus's reddening face. "Face it, mate, we make almost as much mischief as we do music…I should write that down…" As James looked for around for a pen and paper to jot down the potential lyric, Sirius began loudly cursing in the bathroom. He emerged, looking thoroughly pissed.

"Remus Lupin, you bastard, turn the wifi back on."

"No."

Sirius glared at him. "Fine, I will then." He made it to the front of their bus before he realized the cabinet was locked.

"Just give me my computer back, Sirius," Remus pleaded, standing up and reaching for it. With one last glare and an eye roll, Sirius finally tossed the device onto the beanbag chair before tearing apart the bus in search of his cell phone.

"I could have _sworn_ I left it right on that table last night," he mumbled angrily as he searched through a cabinets. He turned to his bandmates, demanding Peter let him use his.

"Don't be an enabler, Pete," James warned. "Clearly, Sirius is very sick, and his addiction must be dealt with properly. I suggest we send him to an Amish community."

Sirius rounded on him. "What happened to 'it's a lost cause, Moony' and 'let him wreak havoc on our public image'?"

"That was before I remembered I woke up with your ruddy foot in my mouth."

"That is it, I am going back to bed. You are all terrible mates, and I don't know why I haven't chosen to pursue a solo career yet," Sirius stomped back to the sleeping quarters and closed the curtain with considerably more dramatic flair than was strictly necessary.

"Am I wrong in guessing Sirius' phone has mysteriously found itself inside your pocket?" James asked Remus.

"Want to rearrange all his apps?"

"Very much so."

Remus tossed it to him. James didn't get very far, however; not two minutes later his own phone began to ring, the caller an unfamiliar one.

"Hmm…wonder who that is," he pondered.

"Only one way to find out," Peter nodded to the phone, encouraging him to answer it.

James lifted it to his ear. "Hello?"

"Is this James Potter?" a female voice demanded, quite forcefully, from the other end. She sounded familiar, but James couldn't quite place where he'd heard the voice before...

"Lucky for you, this is indeed James Potter. Who is this? How did you get this number?"

"Some egotistical _toe rag_ put your number in my phone as 'The Father of My Beautiful Ginger Children."

James' stomach just about fell through the bus floor.

"…Lily Evans?"


End file.
